A Crater of Consensus, or False Assurance?

According to a litany of recent news reports, “the mystery has been solved.” The riddle has been unraveled. A “dream team” of scientists now knows the answer. After much debate over the last several decades, the matter of the great dinosaur demise reportedly has been confirmed, reaffirmed, and settled. At least, that is what the main stream, pro-atheistic, evolutionary media has reported.

On what did a group of evolutionary scientists come to an agreement? The volcano theory? The hay fever theory? The poisonous plant theory? None of these. Forty-one researchers from across the globe believe that everyone can now rest assured that, as many evolutionists had previously thought, dinosaurs became extinct as a result of an asteroid that hit Mexico 65 million years ago (Watson, 2010). According to Kirk Johnson of the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, “We assessed the whole picture.... The answer is quite simple.... The Chicxulub crater really is the culprit” (as quoted in Watson). Due to the impact of this seven-mile-wide asteroid and its subsequent effects, including earthquakes, tsunamis, and darkness (as a result of dust and debris), all of the dinosaurs died out.

As with the General Theory of Evolution, these scientists would like us to think that the debate is over. But the debate is far from over, as even some evolutionary scientists are unconvinced by the asteroid theory. For example, Princeton University professor Gerta Keller still believes that the crater at Chicxulub was formed long before dinosaurs became extinct. What’s more, as many creationists have been asking ever since this theory was first proposed (see Lyons and Butt, 2008, p. 210), evolutionist Norman MacLeod of the Museum of Natural History in London, “wonders why, if the asteroid strike was such a doomsday event, some classes of species survived and even thrived” (Watson, 2010).

The truth is, no one knows for sure why the last of the dinosaurs died out. The Noahic Flood certainly would have destroyed countless thousands (or millions) of dinosaurs around the world. Those that survived the Flood (on Noah’s ark) eventually became extinct for unknown reasons. Creationists have proposed logical reasons why they may have died out (see Lyons and Butt, pp. 220-223), but no one can be absolutely certain.

There is one thing that we can know for sure: dinosaur extinction in no way disproves Creation.

*Please keep in mind that Discovery articles are written for 3rd-6th graders.

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